Derek Dixon, an actor suing Tyler Perry for sexual assault and harassment, appeared for an interview on ABC News on Tuesday to detail his allegations against the entertainment mogul. Dixon says he was exploited by Perry while starring on the producer’s BET series “The Oval.” Perry’s lawyers have issued statements denying the claims.
In the interview with ABC News’ Linsey Davis, Dixon detailed an alleged incident included in the lawsuit, in which he says Perry “pulled my underwear down and grabbed my ass” after a night drinking at Perry’s residence in Atlanta.
“We were both walking back to the guest area, where I’d stayed before, and there’s this health monitor scale on the way. I was like, ‘What is that?’ And he said, ‘Well you have to be in your underwear to measure.’ … He reached down and pulled my underwear down and grabbed my ass and I tried to stop him and pull back my underwear up,” Dixon said in the interview. “He kind of grabbed my arms and said, ‘No no no, it’s okay. Just go with it.’ And I said, ‘Stop, I don’t want to be naked. I don’t want this.’ And he said, ‘I’m not going to hurt you.’”
“Unless someone’s been through something where they have their control over their body taken away, you don’t really understand the kind of feelings that you get in that moment,” Dixon continued. “Every thought came into my head: to run, to fight, to freeze. I didn’t know what to do.”
The evening allegedly ended with Dixon locking himself in the guest house bathroom. He says Perry called to apologize the following day. Dixon says that, prior to the incident, he had stayed at Perry’s guest house on a prior evening, on which Perry allegedly “climbed into bed” with him and “started rubbing my leg.”
“I jumped up out of bed. He said, ‘Turn around so I can look at you,’ and just commented on how I looked. And he got up and left,” Dixon told Davis. “I thought after that instance, it was pretty clear that I was not interested in that type of a relationship. … It’s okay that people try to make a move or shoot their shot, but if they get rejected I think that they should stop. I thought it would stop after that and it didn’t.”
Variety has reached out to Perry’s representatives for comment on Dixon’s interview.
Dixon also says that Perry had sent him numerous texts with sexual connotations. As in his lawsuit, Dixon says he feared professional retaliation if he ignored Perry’s messages. In a Season 2 episode of “The Oval,” Dixon’s character is shot multiple times — a scripting decision that Dixon took as, “If I don’t make him happy, I could stay dead on the show.”
“For me, that was his way of showing power over us and our careers,” Dixon said. “I was extremely anxious. The calls and texts were almost everyday. This constant state of, ‘If I don’t answer, I will lose my job. I will be fired or killed off the show.’ It took a huge toll on my anxiety and depression.”
Dixon left the show in September 2024. His lawsuit against Perry was filed in June. Dixon seeks $260 million in punitive damages from Perry.
“Part of that number is my lost job — my lost income, the loss of the show. The other part of that is a deterrent of how to stop a billionaire who won’t stop himself from doing this,” Dixon said. “I hope you take accountability for what happened and I hope this has taught you not to treat your employees this way. Never use someone’s dream to coerce them into a relationship. That’s not professional.”
In both the lawsuit and the interview, Dixon also says that Perry agreed to produce a pilot that he wrote, for a show titled “Losing It.” Perry allegedly still owns the rights.
Perry’s lawyers have denied Dixon’s allegations, characterizing the lawsuit as a “shakedown.” In a statement to press after the filing, Perry’s attorney Matthew Boyd wrote, “This is an individual who got close to Tyler Perry for what now appears to be nothing more than setting up a scam. But Tyler will not be shaken down and we are confident these fabricated claims of harassment will fail.”
